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" Some great cause, God's new Messiah " 

MESSIAH PULPIT 

^f9 



NEW YORK 



(Being a continuation of l/m'fy Pulpit^ Boston) 



SERMONS OF M. J. SAVAGE 

Vol. IV. FEBRUARY i6, 1900. No. 18. 

Some Lessons from the Life of 
Abraham Lincoln 



GEO. H. ELLIS 

272 CONGKESS StRBBT, BoSTON 

104 E. 20TH Strbet, Nrw York 

I9CK> 



Entered at the Pott-ofiee, Botton, Mom., <u seeond^lau mail matter 



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SOME LESSONS FROM THE LIFE OF 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



I TAKE one text from the New Testament and two from 
the writings of Lincohi himself. The first is from the 
First Epistle of John, the fourth chapter and the seventh 
verse, — "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of 
God ; and every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth 
God." The second is from the second Inaugural Address, 
delivered March 4, 1865, — "With malice toward none, 
with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives 
us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we 
are in." The third is from a private letter to his friend 
Speed, — ** Die when I may, I want it said of me by those 
who know me best that . I always plucked a thistle and 
planted a Hower where I thought a flower would grow." 

Such curious creatures of tradition are we that it would 
not surprise me if there were persons here this morning who 
should question the propriety of my taking a text from 
anything except some Biblical writing. As a matter of 
fact, the use of texts by Christian preachers is compara- 
tively a modern custom. In the next place I do not know 
where any nobler words can be found in any Scripture, 
written in any nation or in any age in the history of all the 
world, than those which I have given you from Lincoln 
himself. Should I take the name of some person mentioned 
in the Bible as my subject, no one would question that it 
was a sermon I was to preach, no matter how little might 
be known of him, no matter though we knew a great deal 
and that great deal were disreputable, — it would be a 
sermon if the man's name happened to be mentioned in the 



Bible. But perhaps there are persons here who will wonder 
whether it is not a lecture, or a secular address, because 
Lincoln happened to live since the writing of the Bible was 
completed. But, as I have said concerning the words, no 
finer can be read in any Scripture, so I say concerning 
Lincoln. Leaving one side the central character, the 
Nazarene, there is no man mentioned in the Bible, from the 
first verse of Genesis to the last of Revelation, who can be 
regarded as Lincoln's superior, either for greatness or for 
goodness. And, since God is ultimately the author of all 
Scripture and the Creator of all grand characters, may we 
not find a sermon in some one of his higher and finer, be- 
cause later, creations ? Let us then put aside all question 
or thought or criticism of this nature, and note some of the 
salient and instructive incidents in his career and the feat- 
ures of his character. 

Since his death we have learned facts in regard to his 
origin, the blood that flowed in his veins, with which he him- 
self was not familiar. It is sometimes said that a man is the 
product of inheritance and of environment. Undoubtedly, 
in some large and general way this is true ; and yet we can- 
not carry out an idea like this in any minute fashion. A 
poet does not necessarily give birth to poets for children ; 
and men born in the midst of poetical surroundings are not 
always distinguished for the possession of poetic gifts. Yet, 
in some large and general way, this is true. 

What blood, then, flowed in the veins of Lincoln ? He 
was English, and New England sifted through the South. 
From a Norfolk family in England we trace the stream to 
Salem, Hingham, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ken- 
tucky, Illinois. Sometimes the stream ran faint and feeble. 
Sometimes it was underground. Then, again, it came to 
the light. Sometimes it was muddy. Sometimes it was 
clear. But, at the last, it sprung up into a fountain of life 
and health and healing for the nation. 

You are familiar with the schooling of Lincoln's poverty 



5 

during his childhood. 1 am no friend of poverty. If it be 
true that the poor we have always with us, I accept it as a 
fact, but count it a misfortune rather than a blessing. I have 
been too well acquainted with it myself to have any love for 
it. But we need to distinguish between the kind of poverty 
which Lincoln endured and that which marks the slums of 
our great cities, — that poverty which is close akin to deceit, 
to theft, to vice, to beggary, to evil of every kind. Lincoln 
knew nothing of poverty such as that. His was that healthy, 
outdoor poverty of the frontier, which struggles grimly, 
sometimes desperately, with adverse conditions, but which 
has health, at least, for a possibility in the physical veins, 
and does not carry with it the temptation to degrading vices, 
does not carry with it any taint of sycophancy, beggary, and 
degeneration of the moral nature. Lincoln was a poor boy, 
who struggled against every kind of obstacle, and educated 
himself only because he had in him a thirst for knowledge. 
I wish to note, in passing, the kind of education which 
Lincoln attained. Was he educated in the true sense of 
that word ? That depends entirely upon what we mean by 
it. If only college-bred men are educated, then, of course, 
he was not. If only men who can read Latin or speak 
French or German are educated, then of course, again, he 
was not. If only men familiar with the great literary and 
art treasures of the world are educated, then again, of 
course, he was not. If men only are educated who have 
been able to devote themselves to profound researches in 
philosophy and science, then again, of course, he was not. 
He was not educated in the sense of having been made a 
receptacle into which facts were poured. A man may be 
brimful, running over with facts and information of every 
kind, and still be a fool. This does not constitute educa- 
tion. A man is educated who is so trained in his percep- 
tive faculties, in his analytical powers, so trained in all his 
abilities of one kind and another, that, put him down in the 
midst of difficult surroundings, he will be able to see where 



he is, able to understand what the occasion calls for, be able 
to master his conditions instead of being overwhelmed by 
them. The man who can master himself and master his 
surroundings, wherever he may be, only give him a little 
time, — he is an educated man. Arid the man who is the 
victim of his conditions and surroundings, with no practical 
ability or power, may know ever so much, but he is not 
educated. 

Lincoln was one of the most grandly educated men of 
his generation ; and yet he was ignorant of the great ma- 
jority of things that people foolishly suppose to be abso- 
lutely essential to education. As an illustration, perhaps I 
may be pardoned for telling an anecdote with which you 
may be familiar, which illustrates the point I have been 
trying to make. 

It is said that a man was being sailed across a lake some- 
where in the Old World by a boatman, and that this gentle- 
man was a puffed-up and conceited scholar and literary 
man. He fell into conversation with the boatman, and said 
to him, " Have you ever studied philosophy ? " And when 
the answer came, " No," he said, "Then a quarter of your 
life is lost." Then he said, " Did you ever study science ? " 
And the answer being the same, he replied, " Then another 
quarter of it is lost.'' " Do you know anything about art? " 
" No." "Well, then, another quarter of your life is gone." 
Just then a squall struck the boat, and the boatman turned 
and said, " Sir, can you swim ? " " No," came the answer. 
" Well, then," the boatman replied. " the whole of your life 
is lost." 

The one thing of first importance is to be able to swim, 
and that art and science Lincoln had grandly mastered. 

Let us note in passing — I wish only that you give a 
glimpse at it — how closely in touch he was with the com- 
mon people, the common thought, the common life. He 
was one of the common people ; and the circumstances of 
his life made the grocery store of a Western village the 



centre of all political discussion, discussion of every kind 
that concerned the life of the people, and Lincoln, as the 
result of his natural powers and abilities, became the centre, 
leader, master, of these discussions. This was where all 
public questions were discussed and settled. Lincoln could 
tell the best and most pointed story, and could analyze the 
problems that came up, and help decide the great questions 
of the day better than any man in the midst of the surround- 
ing country where he lived. 

Now I wish to note the kind of character that he devel- 
oped ; and this seems native, to have sprung up as water 
springs from some hidden source under ground whose ulti- 
mate and far-away fountain is God. The honesty of his 
character; the simple fact that he was called " Honest Abe," 
singled him out as peculiarly and distinctly honest. He did 
not borrow what honesty he had from his neighbors. We 
know there were plenty of questionable and slippery char- 
acters in the midst of those that made up his neighbor- 
hood in his ordinary life ; but there was this integrity in the 
man's character that made it utterly impossible for him to 
be anything but honest. 

You remember that one little incident, characteristic of 
the man, just as a little chipping from a granite block will 
let you see the quality of the whole quarry. He had been 
postmaster at the little town of New Salem, — one of those 
small towns that flourished for a while and then went out of 
existence, — and, when the business of the office was wound 
up, it being very difficult in those days to communicate with 
Washington, Lincoln put away what was left of money that 
belonged to the government until it could be called for. 
Some years afterwards an agent of the post-office called for 
a settlement of the accounts. Lincoln not only gave him 
the accounts, but went to the bottom of a trunk and picked 
out an old stocking, and out of that stocking took the ideri- 
tical silver and copper coins which belonged to the govern- 
ment when he wound up his affairs, and, turning them over 



to the agent, said, — what would make a revolution in the life 
of this country if everybody could say, — " I never use any 
money but my own."' 

, I do not mean by this that a man has not a right to bor- 
row money that is not his own ; for, if he borrows it legiti- 
mately, it is his own for the time being. But, if the business 
of this country could be conducted in that fashion, the millen- 
nium that people dream of would be some millions of years 
nearer to us than it appears, so far as we can discern any 
signs of its coming. 

Honest in his personal character, honest in his profes- 
sional character. I am perfectly well aware that there are 
any number of good lawyers who claim, and honestly claim, 
that they have a perfect right to light to attain anything for 
their clients that the law will permit them to attain, whether 
it is morally permissible or not. They say we did not make 
the laws. It is our business to help administer law in ac- 
corciance with the statutes ; and, if we can gain a point for 
our clients and gain it legally, it is honest and right for us to 
do it. There are large numbers of honest men in the legal 
profession who hold that theory of their position and work. 
'J'here are others, however, who differ. I have a friend in a 
prominent position in Washington who studied law when 
he was a young man ; and, when his professor told him that 
such things were permissible and practised commonly at the 
bar, he said, " Well, I won't be a lawyer." And he studied 
something else instead. 

Lincoln's theory of law practice w^as different from this. 
He carried his idea of honesty into his profession to such 
an extent that the simple fact that he was ready to advocate 
any particular side was always proof to the jury that that 
side ought to win ; for they knew that Lincoln was keen, 
that he could analyze, that he could discover the facts. 
And they said. We know he wouldn't take a case that he 
didn't believe was right. That was the way he practised 
law. As an illustration of it, it is said that one day Hern- 



don, his law partner, in preparing a case, guessed at some- 
thing, thought it might be true, and put it forward as one 
plea. Lincoln looked over the brief, and he said, " Hern- 
don, do you know if that is so ? " The answer was, " No," 
that he had guessed at it. Then Lincoln said : " Herndon, 
that comes pretty near being a sham ; and a sham comes 
pretty near to being a lie. Don't let it go on the record. 
If you do, some day this cursed thing may come up and 
stare us in the face long after the case is settled." That is 
the way he conducted his law cases. 

There were two young men, children of an old friend of 
his, whom another lawyer had led into sharp practices. 
They were trying to win a dishonest case. Lincoln appeared 
on the other side, and pleaded with the jury to convict them 
for their own sake. He said. These boys are children of 
an old friend of mine, and I want to save them if 1 can ; and 
I plead with you to convict them, to deliver them from the 
course of dishonesty on which they are entering, to help 
teach them the lesson that it won't pay. 

In another case a man came to him, and said, "■ Lincoln, I 
wish you would prosecute this claim for me." Lincoln 
looked it over ; and he said : " Yes, I think I could win it. 
I could get these few hundred dollars from the widow with 
her helpless children ; but I think it probably belongs to 
her quite as much as to you. I could do it, but I won't ; 
for there are some legal rights which are moral wrongs." 

And, then, he did another thing which, I presume, would 
astonish most New York clients. He tried a case : and his 
law partner, Lamon it happened to be at that time, took a 
fee of $250, which he offered to share with Lincoln. It was 
a case for a poor young woman whose mind was weak, and 
who could not look after her own interests ; and Lincoln said, 
" Lamon, I won't touch any half of any fee until you send 
half of that back : it is too large a fee for the services we 
have rendered." This was the quality of the man. Do you 
wonder that he came to be looked upon with universal and 



10 

unlimited trust by the common people, as they learned to 
know what manner of man he was ? 

It is not my business this morning to give you his biog- 
raphy, to tell you in detail the outlines of his career. I 
wish to pick up certain lessons which we maj'' apply to our- 
selves day by day. Note the tenderness, the tender heart- 
edness, the 'humanity of the great, strong, heroic soul, — 
tenderness that did not simply take in all mankind, but 
everything that could feel, that led him even to forget the 
dignity of his character and his actions if he could prevent 
pain. As an illustration, he was riding with some other 
lawyers on a certain occasion. They missed him from their 
company ; and pretty soon he appeared, covered with mud 
from head to feet, — as he might easily do, as any of you will 
know who understand what those Western roads can be, — 
and they found he had got off of his horse for the sake of un- 
miring a pig which was sinking slowly down into suffocation. 
If any of you can find a nobler thing than that done by any- 
body anywhere, though it may not lend itself to heroic 
verse, I would like to hear the tale. 

He was so tender-hearted in his dealings with those who 
had broken the laws of the land that, so far as I have been 
able to study his career, I have found only one case where 
he wilfully and purposely, and with apparent gladness, re- 
fused to pardon. I do not mean by this that he pardoned 
everybody ; but he wanted to. He refused once to pardon 
a slave-trader. That is the onjy case I have ever discov- 
ered. He had very little sympathy with a man who could 
trade in his fellow-men. They used to find fault with him, 
as I well remember, because he was so lenient with those 
who were guilty of breaches of military discipline. He said 
on a certain occasion, writing to a friend, " It rests me, 
after a hard day's work, to hunt for and find some good 
reason for pardoning a poor fellow who is condemned to be 
shot ; and I can go to bed happy, thinking how joyous 
I have made him and his family and his friends." This 



II 

great, all-embracing tenderness, tender as he who, — when 
hanging on the cross, — said, " Father, forgive them : they 
know not what they do ! " 

I wish to note, in passing, — though this is no necessary 
part of my theme, — the greatness of Lincoln. And let me 
say here, as springing out of that thought, that the nation is 
blessed that has great men ; and these great men are not 
always to be envied on account of the supposed happiness 
which they enjoy. I believe it is rather true that the great- 
est souls of the world have been burdened, sad, tragic 
souls, — lonely, like some mountain summits, cold in their 
isolation ; but, like mountain summits, they are the sources 
of the streams that trickle down their sides to fertilize and 
beautify the valleys and to bear up on their bosoms the com- 
merce of the world. 

It is sometimes said that we must imitate God. No, 
friends, just in so far as God is pictured to us as being 
unhuman, or super-human, unlike man, just so far is it im- 
possible for us to imitate him. We can only imitate human 
qualities ; and here is one objection that I have to the lifting 
of Jesus out of the range of our human sympathies. It is 
only as he was a man that we can tread in his steps, that 
we can find in him inspiration and uplift towards noble and 
grand things. 

I have been asked a great many times, if evolution is true, 
why it is that the great men, so many of them, were in the 
past. Why do we not have the greatest men now, if the 
world is growing and lifting and rising all the time ? If this 
were the place, I could go into a wide and elaborate dis- 
cussion of that subject. 1 can touch now on only one 
thought concerning it. I think that the popular impression 
that the great men are in the past springs out of an entire 
misconception of the past, and our tendency always to ideal- 
ize that which is a good ways off. For example, we talk 
about Plato, Aristotle, the great philosophers of the olden 
time. There is not a philosopher in all the past history of 



12 

the world who, for grasp and breadth of mind, for informa- 
tion, for analytical, for constructive power, can be placed 
beside Herbert Spencer. Aristotle and Plato, as thinkers, 
were not his equals. So it is not true that the great men 
were all in the past. 

This leads me to say of Lincoln that I do not know of 
any man in the past history of the world that I believe will 
be estimated in the future as being greater than he, — great 
not only in these moral qualities, but great in intellectual 
grasp and power. Those who have studied the inside his- 
tory of the nation during the time that he was at the head of 
affairs know that it was he more than everybody else that 
saved the nation. It was one of the most fortunate things 
that ever happened in this country that Seward, for example, 
had made himself so unpopular in Pennsylvania that the 
political managers felt he could not carry that State in the 
election, and so did not dare to nominate him. This was 
the turning-point in the history of Lincoln. This country 
would have been ruined in a year if any one other than Lin- 
coln had been in his place. He mastered the strategies of 
the battlefield as well as did the soldiers ; and he had the 
instinct for selecting the best men and putting them in the 
right place and keeping them there. People say Grant 
saved the nation; but Lincoln saved Grant. Grant would 
have been turned out of his position over and over again 
but for Lincoln. He said, " I can't spare that man : he 
fights." And you remember the familiar story of how, when 
they told him of Grant's drinking, Lincoln replied, " I wish 
I could find the kind of liquor he drinks, so that I could 
give it to my other generals." 

It was Lincoln, then, Lincoln's intellectual power as well 
as his moral power, that saved the nation in our great 
crisis. 

I want to touch for a moment on that other qualit}' of 
Lincoln's character that is always associated with him in 
our memory, his keen sense of humor. This is not the 



13 

place nor is this the hour for me to give you illustrations 
of it. I simply note it as being one of the great and most 
important, as I believe, constituents in his character. In 
the first place, it is a saving quality in any man. The man 
who can smile at his own discomforts, at disasters that come 
to himself, is safe. The man who can relieve the great ten- 
sion of bearing public burdens is safe. Lincoln used to 
speak of this, or his friends used to speak of it for him, as 
his safety-valve ; and, when some found fault with him for 
indulging in it on what seemed unfitting occasions, he said 
wearily, " If I could not laugh, I should die." Lincoln's 
humor, his laughter, his mirth, was only the spray on the 
crest of white caps that rolled over the fathomless deeps 
where were caverns and mysteries that reached down to the 
heart of the world. Lincoln was blessed by this power of 
humor, which helped him bear himself bravely and find 
relief in the midst of the great stress and burden of his 
public affairs. 

A personal friend of mine tells nie of meeting him one 
night, or rather morning, in the grounds of the White 
House. He told the story so graphically that, if I could re- 
produce it, you would see him as I did and as my friend saw 
him. It seemed to be typical of his character. This friend 
was spending the night in Washington, and it was very 
warm in the summer ; and he got up, being not far away from 
the White House, and thought he would stroll through the 
grounds. It was between two and three o'clock in the morn- 
ing. He was walking leisurely along one of the paths when 
he saw a strange figure coming. He stopped a moment, and 
knew it was the I'resident. He had on a dressing-gown 
and indoor cap and his slippers, and was walking wearily 
along, his head bowed. My friend stood one side, and 
watched that marred face ; watched that patient head, as 
though of an Atlas supporting a world; watched him in the 
darkness pacing up and down like a shepherd while his 
people slept, thinking about some great, perplexing problem 



14 

of peace or war, with head bowed, until he said the agony 
of his look was burned into his consciousness so that he 
should never be able to forget it as long as he lived. So he 
bore our burdens, carried our sorrows, for our sakes was 
smitten ; and with his stripes we have been healed. 

I come now to touch on his religious character, to raise 
first the question as to whether he had a religious charac- 
ter ; for, friends, I propose to do this morning a thing I do 
not often do. It would help clear the air if people would 
rise and open their eyes and face facts a little now and 
then. Was Lincoln a religious man ? If we are to judge 
by the standards asserted and reasserted every day in the 
year by the Vatican, judged from the point of view of the 
great Roman Catholic Church, Lincoln was not a Christian 
or a religious man ; and to-day he is tasting the cup of tor- 
ment pressed to the lips of the lost. If the teaching of the 
infallible Church is true, Lincoln has never been saved and 
never can be saved. Judged by the standards of the An- 
glican Church and the Episcopal Church of this country, 
Lincoln is lost ; and there is no hope for him in any period 
of the future. Measured by the standards of the Presbyte- 
rian Confession of Faith, which is being published still 
all over Europe and America, Lincoln is lost. He never 
complied with one single condition of the Presbyterian 
Church for being saved. Judged by the standards of the 
great Methodist churches of England and America, Lincoln 
is lost. Judged by the standards of the great Baptist 
churches of Europe and America, Lincoln is lost. Judged 
by the standards of the Congregational churches as affirmed 
in their great National Council at Plymouth Rock a few 
years ago, Lincoln is lost. 

I say it will do us good now and then to think a little 
straight and clear. If to say this shocks you, I am not 
responsible. I did not make the creeds. I am simply tell- 
ing you what they are. If it seems to you incredible, 
unbelievable, too horrible to be true, to think that the great, 



15 

gentle, magnanimous, loving, tender, helpful man, he who 
next, perhaps, to Jesus himself, is entitled to be called a 
Saviour, — if it seems too horrible for you to think of him as 
being lost, then do not any longer support the creeds that 
say so. Be honest and clear-headed enough to say on the 
street what you think in the privacy of your souls. 

What was Lincoln's religious opinion and character } 

When he was a young man, he wrote a book which would 
have been called an infidel publication, which would be now 
if it were in existence. His friends got hold of it, and de- 
stroyed it, because they were afraid that it would ruin his 
political future. Undoubtedly it would have done it. Let me 
say, in passing, there is not an office in the gift of the American 
people that might not have been in the reach of Colonel Rob- 
ert G. Ingersoll if he had been dishonest enough to conceal 
his opinions. If Lincoln's opinions had been known when 
he was a young man, they would have ruined his political 
future. Undoubtedl)', he changed those opinions, and ap- 
proached more nearly to common religious views as he grew 
older. I will read you an extract from Carpenter's " Six 
INIonths at the White House " : — 

" The conversation turned upon religious subjects, and 
INIr. Lincoln made this impressive remark : ' I have never 
united myself to any church, because I have found difficulty 
in giving my assent, without mental reservation, to the long, 
complicated statements of Christian doctrine which charac- 
terize their Articles of Belief and Confessions of Faith. 
When any church will inscribe over its altar, as its sole 
qualification for membership, the Saviour's condensed 
statement of the substance of both law and gospel, " Thou 
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all 
thy soul, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbor as thy- 
self," that church will I join with all my heart and all my 
soul.' " 

Perhaps some of you, although you are Unitarians, do not 
know that that is precisely the basis of organization of the 



i6 

National Conference of Unitarian Churches. If Lincoln 
were alive now, that statement would make him one of our 
own people; for that is the platform on which we stand — 
love to God and love to man, as the essence of all true 
religion, the essence of the religion which Jesus preached 
and illustrated by his life. I do not mean to claim that, if 
Lincoln had lived, he would have ever joined a Unitarian 
church. But I do claim that his real place would have been 
either with the Universalists or with ourselves. 

Lincoln, then, if we are to measure him by the standard 
of goodness, of devotion to his fellow-men, of consecration 
to high ideals, of endeavoring to find and follow the law and 
life of God, — then he was most magnificently religious. Let 
me repeat here, because it is needed to complete my thought, 
although I know it is trite, that saying of his concerning 
getting on to the side of God. When some one asked him 
why he felt confident that God was on our side, he said, 
That is a thing I never trouble myself about one way or 
another : the one thing I am anxious about is to find out 
where God is, and get on his side. He did not expect to 
change God ; and he tried to find where God was and get 
beside him. If that makes a man religious, then there is 
no man in the history of the world more grandly religious 
than he. 

In unselfishness and magnanimity of character, as illus- 
trated in his public attitude and in his dealings with Stanton 
and Chase, I know of no one with whom to compare him 
except only the one great soul of Palestine. 

One other point at the close. There have been a dozen 
or twenty theories of the Atonement held since the begin- 
ning of speculation. It is too long a story ev^en to hint this 
morning ; but there is a true and profound sense in which 
the men who have lived grandly and died heroically for 
truth have atoned. I do not believe — or I should not be 
in this church — that anyone's atonement means a substi- 
tution of suft'ering or goodness for me. I do not believe it 



17 

means an appeasing of God's anger or any change in the 
nature or attitude of God towards any of his children. But 
I do beUeve that every man who has been true, every man 
who has been honest, outspoken, frank, every man who has 
been faithful to his convictions, every man who has paid the 
price by unpopularity or pain, any man who has stood firm 
while fagots have kindled about his feet, any man who for 
an idea has laid his head on a block, any man who has felt 
the stifling clutch at his throat for truth, any man who has 
given himself for God and his fellow-men, — has helped work 
out the agelong atonement which brings men into perfect 
reconciliation with God. 

So I believe that Lincoln, as I have already said, was 
bruised for our transgressions. I believe his stripes have 
helped heal us. His faithfulness, his sorrow, the pangs that 
he suffered, all these have helped work out the peace, the 
prosperity, the glory of our great nation. 

And if we love Lincoln, if we honor him, if we are worthy 
of belonging to the same race not simply, but the same country, 
let us try in our spheres to be a little faithful, as he was 
much ; to be a little true, as he was much ; to be a little pa- 
tient, as he was much ; to be a little honest, as he was much ; 
to be a little devoted to the political welfare and uplifting of 
the people, as he was always devoted. And then we shall 
not only help him save the country ; but by and by we may 
perhaps stand beside him and overlook the work that has 
been accomplished here, and feel that we are worthy to 
join in congratulating him on what he accomplished and 
what we helped to bring to fuller fruition. 

I wish to close by reading you two or three lines from 
Lowell's " Commemoration Ode," the finest tribute, I think 
that has ever been paid to this greatest of men : — 

Nature, they say, doth dote, 
And cannot make a man 
Save on some worn-out plan, 
Repeating us by rote : 



i8 



For him her Old World moulds aside she threw, 

And, choosing sweet clay from the breast 
Of the unexhausted West, 
With stuff untainted shaped a hero new, 
Wise, steadfast in the strength of God, and true. 

How beautiful to see 
Once more a shepherd of mankind indeed. 
Who loved his charge, but never loved to lead ; 
One whose meek flock the people joyed to be. 

Not lured by any cheat of birth. 

But by his clear-grained human worth. 
And brave old wisdom of sincerity! 

They knew that outward grace is dust ; 

They could not choose but trust 
In that sure-footed mind's unfaltering skill, 

And supple-tempered will 
That bent like perfect steel to spring again and thrust. 

His was no lonely mountain-peak of mind, 

Thrasting to thin air o'er our cloudy bars, 

A sea-mark now, now lost in vapors blind ; 

Broad prairie rather, genial, level lined. 

Fruitful and friendly for all human kind, 
Yet also nigh to heaven and loved of loftiest stars. 

Nothing of Europe here. 
Or, then, of Europe fronting mornward still. 

Ere any names of Serf and Peer 
Could Nature's equal scheme deface 

And thwart her genial will ; 
Here was a type of the true elder race. 
And one of Plutarch's men talked with us face to face. 

I praise him not ; it were too late ; 
And some innative weakness there must be 
In him who condescends to victory 
Such as the Present gives, and cannot wait, 
Safe in himself as in a fate. 

So always firmly he : 

He knew to bide his time, 

And can his fame abide. 
Still patient in his simple faith sublime, 

Till the wise years decide. 
Great captains, with their guns and drums. 
Disturb our judgment for the hour, 

But at last silence comes ; 



19 

These all are gone, and, standing like a tower. 
Our children shall behold his fame, 

The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man. 
Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame. 
New birth of our new soil, the first American. 

Father, we thank Thee for him, Thy great, noble son. We 
thank Thee that we are fellow-countrymen of his, that the 
same blood beats in our veins, the same aspirations lift up 
our hearts, the same great future awaits us and our children. 
May we be worthy of him ; and may we, in gratitude to Thee 
for giving him to us, try to live as he lived, and help our 
country as he helped it. Amen. 



Life Beyond Death 

Being a Review of the World's Beliefs on the Subject, a Con- 
sideration of Present Conditions of Tltought and Feeling, 
leading to the Question as to whether it can be demon- 
strated as a Fact. 

To which is added an Appendix containing Some Hints as to 
Personal Experiences and Opiniotts. 

By MINOT J. SAVAGE, D.D. 

8°, cloth, 342 pages ^1.50 



After a review of the beliefs held in the past concerning life 
beyond death, Dr. Savage takes up the present conditions of be- 
lief, and considers the agnostic reaction from the extreme " other- 
worldliness " which it replaced, which was in turn followed by 
the spiritualistic reaction against agnosticism. He points out 
the doubts concerning the doctrine of immortality held by the 
churches and the weakness of the traditional creeds and the 
loosening of their hold upon people. He then considers the prob- 
abilities of a future life, — probabilities which, as he admits, fall 
short of demonstration. The volume includes a consideration of 
the work of the vSociety for Psychical Research and also an 
appendix giving some of the author's own personal experiences 
in this line. Dr. Savage holds, as a provisional hypothesis, that 
continued existence is demonstrated, and that there have been at 
least some well-authenticated communications from persons in 
the other life. The chief contents of the volume are as follows: 

Contents: Primitive Ideas — Ethnic Beliefs — The Old Testament 
and Immortality — Paul's Doctrine of Death and the Other Life — 
Jesus and Immortality — The Other World and the Middle Ages — 
Protestant Belief concerning Death and the Life Beyond — The Agnos- 
tic Reaction — The Spiritualistic Reaction — The Worid's Condition 
and Needs as to Belief in Immortality — Probabilities which fall Short 
of Demonstration — The Society for Psychical Research and the Im- 
mortal Life — Possible Conditions of Another Life — Some Hints as to 
Personal E.xperiences and Opinions. 



G. P. Putnam's Sons, 27 & 29 West 23d St., N.Y. 



LbMylS 



